Dear Aberystwyth Students, Staff, and Community Members,
It has been an honour and a great pleasure to work with you over the past two years. As the Opportunities Officer 2019-21 I’ve had a chance to experience, learn, and witness many wonderful things, and for that, I would like to express my deepest gratitude.
Starting two years ago I didn’t exactly know what to expect. Not only was I lacking in experience, I was also a foreigner and an art student… My passion and expertise were far from organisational and leadership ones. But you’ve given me a chance and I thank you for that. And I hope I have made you proud.
They say the most difficult part is to start something – to take that first step, to dive into the deep end, to go forth into the uncertain… But I think it is even more difficult to finish. With the many adventures, lessons, and obstacles, which I’ve been blessed to encounter over the past years in office, I am certain that the most difficult part of it all is happening as we speak, right now. As you’re reading these words, I’m yet again ‘resetting the dial’ and turning the page of my life. But as I depart, I look back at these exceptional experiences and am in awe of them all…
During my time in the Students Union, I’ve had the privilege and the pleasure to work on some amazing projects, some of which were of my design. With the heartfelt comments from my co-workers, I feel proud to consider that Aber Challenge, Aber All Star Scheme, as well as Arts Festival are here to stay and I am happy that whenever I visit Aberystwyth in the years to come I will be able to hold my chin up and claim the contribution towards these great projects. Although there was plenty more we could have done, if the world would not take such a dramatic turn as it did, I am very pleased with what we managed to achieve. Superteams of 2020 blew me away, leaving sweet, crazy memories for the years to follow. Organising Committee Training 2020 was both overwhelming and greatly rewarding, and creating so many little actions taken by our amazing Aberystwyth Students Union Team over the course of the last year kept my enthusiasm and motivation high when the world was rather low. Moreover, with the help of University’s best, I’ve had a chance to participate in multiple committees, projects, and boards, which greatly enhanced my employability skills, and made me a better, more mature individual. For all of these superb opportunities, I bow to you all.
I find it to be quite a paradox that my role as a student representative claims to be one of the ‘Opportunities Officer’ whereas I feel I was the one with the most opportunities being offered most of the time I worked in the SU. I hope that through my effort I managed to give back for such a privilege. This might be the moment to extend my gratitude towards the best team I’ve had a chance to work with. The Opportunities Office is truly one that people should recognise more often. Working their tails off, oftentimes after hours, and throughout the weekends, this little cell of efficiency has become my team within a team, a family within the SU family. Like all families, we might have been dysfunctional at times, but we always pushed through with a great deal of success. Lucie, Tom, and Emily have deeply enriched my time in the office and offered me support in any way they could. In the words of Dale Carnegie ‘Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results’ and these people without a doubt allowed me to do so. Great thanks to my Opps Squad for this beautiful adventure.
With the vastness of the world on the horizon, I thank you all for making these past two years such an amazing experience. The number of lessons, skills, and wonderful people I’ve had a chance to encounter is incomprehensible, and I look forward to seeing you all soon enough.
In the end, I wish to leave you all with a beautiful quote by Henry David Thoreau ‘Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes’.
May our journeys continue and paths intertwine once more,
All the love and respect,
Woj